Julia Watts - Wedding Bell Blues

Although sex had become less frequent since Mimi’s arrival, the rule seemed to be quality over quantity. Lily and Charlotte craved their time alone — ached for those couple of hours when they could be free of the responsibilities of mommyhood and lose themselves in each other.

Lily was aware of Charlotte behind her as they walked upstairs to the bedroom. Her breath caught in anticipation of what they were about to do. She let Charlotte follow her into the bedroom, taking pleasure in the fact that there was no need to close the door behind them.

Lily lay on the bed, barefoot in the little black dress she knew Charlotte liked, and watched Charlotte take off her watch and rings and set them on the bureau. Charlotte looked at Lily sprawled on the bed and smiled.

“C’mere,” Lily coaxed, scooting over to make room. “Just a second. I want to look at you first. “ Lily laughed. “You look at me all the time.”

But I never tire of it.”

Lily lay on the bed, feeling Charlotte’s gaze burn through her. In everyday life, Lily felt she was passably attractive in a sloppy, bohemian kind of way, but she certainly wasn’t the kind of person who turned heads — male or female.

In the world of their bedroom, though, Charlotte made Lily feel like a high-femme fantasy figure.

In Charlotte’s eyes, in Charlotte’s hands, she was Rita Hayworth ... Marilyn Monroe.

When Charlotte finally joined Lily on the bed, their lips met in a fierce, bruising kiss. Lily wrapped her arms and legs around her lover, who pressed down on her, as each of them tried to get as close to the other as possible.

Charlotte pulled down the shoulder strap of Lily’s black dress and kissed her from shoulder to collarbone to breast. And when Charlotte’s hand slipped between Lily’s legs, Lily was ready for her — so ready that as Charlotte entered her, a sound escaped her mouth, the sound a woman can only make at the height of passion — a breathy, desperate...

SNORT!

Snort? Lily awoke from her dream to find that her arm was wrapped around not the curvy form of Charlotte, but the flat, hairy chest of Benny Jack McGilly, who was snoring with the volume of a sea lion with bronchitis.

Disoriented and still not quite removed from her dream state, Lily leaped out of bed. Where the hell was she, and what in the name of Sappho was she doing in bed with a man?

SNORT! Ben’s snoring shook the bed.

A man with obvious respiratory problems, no less? She backed away from the bed, horrified, only to feel something sharp stick her shoulder blade. She wheeled around to see the black, beady eyes of the stuffed turkey staring at her. She couldn’t help it. She screamed.

Ben stopped in mid-snort, sat upright, and flipped on the lamp. “What the — ?”

The peck on the shoulder had woken Lily up. “Um... I’m sorry. I was dreaming ... about Charlotte, and then your snoring woke me up, and I don’t know... In my dream it was like everything was so normal, and then when I woke up everything was just ... weird, y’know?”

“Well, that’s no excuse for hysteria when some people are trying to sleep. And besides, I do not snore.”

A knock on the door froze Lily and Ben stiff. “Hey,” Big Ben’s voice called. “Everything okay in there? We heard screaming.”

“Everything’s fine, Daddy,” Ben said testily. “Go back to bed.”

“Oh,” Big Ben said. “Oh. Sorry to, uh, interrupt.” Ben’s face turned the same shade of red as the preserved turkey’s wattle.

“What?” Lily teased. “You’re embarrassed that your father thinks you were driving me to screaming heights of ecstasy?”

Ben flipped the light off. “Let’s go back to sleep, okay?” He rolled over, and soon the snoring resumed.

Lily crawled back into bed. She hated Ben for waking her up, because she knew that dreams were the only place she’d ever feel Charlotte’s touch again. Lily’s six years with Charlotte had been a blur of bliss, and now in two short weeks, Lily’s life had altered until it was no longer recognizable.

She lay awake, crying softly to herself and praying that Mimi would be safe, until beams of sunlight shot through the bedroom window.

Lily slept just long enough to awake feeling extra groggy. The only thing that’ll make you feel worse than not sleeping at all is sleeping just a couple of hours, she thought as she padded stiffly down the hall to check on Mimi. Mimi was in her crib, sleeping with a soundness that Lily envied. She walked down the hall to one of the McGillys’ numerous bathrooms.

As she emerged from the shower, she heard Mimi crying. She pulled her clothes on over her damp skin and ran down the hall. By the time she arrived, Mimi was in the throes of a full-blown hysterical fit.

“It’s okay, baby. Mama’s here.” She lifted Mimi out of the crib and hugged her. “You don’t like waking up in a strange place any more than your mama does, do you?” She laid her down on one of the bunk beds. “Let’s get you out of this pee-pee diaper and see if we can scare you up some breakfast.”

Lily carried Mimi downstairs and followed the smell of coffee into the kitchen. “Good morning, Lily!” Jeanie said brightly, dropping two slices of bread into the toaster. “How many eggs can I fix you?

Three? Four?”

Eggs first thing in the morning weren’t Lily’s favorite thing. Her usual breakfast was a piece of fruit washed down with copious amounts of coffee. “One egg is plenty.”

Jeanie looked her up and down. “I guess it would be, wouldn’t it? You’re a tiny little thing. I’m used to feeding boys, and it’s a sight how much they eat. When all three of my boys was home, we used to go through six dozen eggs a week.” She handed Mimi a sippy cup of milk, Lily a mug of coffee.

“Speaking of my boys, I bet that sorry husband of yours ain’t turned over in the bed yet.”

“He was still pretty out of it when I got up.” She sipped from the mug. “Good coffee.”

“He always was slow to wake. I used to pour ice water on him to get him outta bed for school.” Jeanie set a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of Lily. “Hmm,” Jeanie said, “I reckon I should just go on and wake him up. I can’t just wait around all day to cook his breakfast.”

Lily nibbled toast and spooned egg into Mimi’s open, baby-bird mouth while Jeanie hollered up the stairs, “Benny Jack! You better get on up! It’s going on nine o’clock!”

Lily smiled. Back in Atlanta, Ben rarely rose before eleven.

From upstairs Lily heard Ben yell back a response that sounded like, “oh, for god’s sake, Mother.” But in two minutes, he was in the kitchen, his face shadowed with stubble and his hair standing on end as if he were a cartoon character who had stuck his finger in a light socket.

“Welcome to married life, Lily,” Jeanie said, dropping two more pieces of bread in the toaster.

“You might go to bed with a good-looking man, but when he wakes up in the morning, he’s gonna look like holy hell.”